Peaches here! We're back...or at least I'm back...with another weird holiday.
This one is a doozy...its called Smoke and Mirrors Day! All about magic...Of course I, as cat, make magic every day!
there seemed to be ANOTHER CAT there with me!
I looked...and looked...and finally found her!
How fun. I do love to watch kittens and cats and mirrors. It's most entertaining.
Peaches you are the cutest and very sharp to find that other feline. When we lay on Dads bed for story time we see cats over behind his dresser. We have gone over to snoop but there is a magical force field that prevents entry. Have any suggestions?
Maybe the other cat who looks so much like you is shadowing you because she wants to be your friend.


In just one weeks time, Jauz will debut his first album The Wise and The Wicked. Until then, the powerhouse producer graces eager listeners with one last single ahead of release, "Super Fly," featuring German producer 666.
"Super Fly" features heavy bass house flare, a signature of Jauz. Powerful synths and percussive elements create a playful, yet hard-hitting atmosphere. It's the perfect mix of experimental and club-wild, and it beckons to be put on repeat.
The Jauz and 666 collab will be featured on the fourth chapter of The Wise and The Wicked, called "The United," described by Jauz as the the middle ground of club bangers and emotional music.
The Wise and The Wicked drops Friday, August 31. Check out "Super Fly" with 666 below.


Firebase is online platform by Google, that has lots of useful functions such as Realtime Database, Cloud Messaging, Cloud Storage and many other. It hosts Google on his own servers. You can access services right from web, mobile apps or many other ways.
In our integration with BigClown we will be using Realtime Database and sends data there. You will learn how to connect and sends data to firebase from Node-RED and try real example with sending data from motion sensor.
Install Firebase plugin in Node-RED Menu > Manage palette and search for node-red-contrib-firebase.
In BigClown Playground just open Functions tab.
Connect to your BigClown Hub via IP adress or DNS name.
Go to website https://console.firebase.google.com/ and Click to "Add project".
Give your project whatever name you want, we will use for our example bigclowndemo and click Create project.
Step 3: Click continue after Fireabse tells you that new project is ready.
At the bottom of your screen you will see three Cards, click "Get started" on third Card called Database.
For our demo, we will use choice Test mode, which is totally not secure and we recommend to change the settings of read/write rights (you can find more about it on Firebase documentation). However, for our demo it is sufficient. Click Enable.
Now you must see database itself. Click on "dismiss" on red bar. Point on name of database and then click on plus symbol right next to name of your database. In field bellow fill Name with test, value with 0 and again click "Add" bellow. That's all for Firebase part but keep it open. Link of your database you will need later, you can find it on top of Database card. Mine is https://bigclowndemo-932c9.firebaseio.com/.
Open our Node-RED, click on "Hamburger menu" next to Deploy button > Import > Clipboard. Past text bellow.
Double click on Firebase called "Set value to 1", then click on pencil next to the Firebase line and fill it with your own. In my case I've just typed bigclowndemo-932c9, in Auth choose None, then click "Add". Click Done on next page. Do the same on second Firebase named Set 0 to Firebase.
Click deploy. After deploying. Click on "Set 1 to Firebase". Open your Firebase Database. You have to see 1 in test child, do the same thing with second button and you have to see 0 in child in your database.
Sends data from motion sensor to Firebase.
Step 1: Had flow from Radio Motion Detector and check if it sends data.
Add mqtt in function that will take data from Motion sensor and sets there same Topic, which we can see in debug mode. This will return json information and we need to convert it.
For converting we will use simple function json, it is in function category. After placing json function we place firebase modify function, which sends our number of motions to firebase. Sets your Firebase like you can read in previous parts. Value msg.payload is there because json save behave this method value from mqtt in function.
Click deploy and you should see number of motions in firebase.
You can use Firebase as a bridge of communication. It is easier to work with Firebase if you want to build web or mobile app than getting it right from your Raspberry or Playground. It is free and reliably. It has huge support in programming languages and it is easy to learn.


Written by Emma Kavanagh — A mother is out in the park, watching her young daughters at play. What on earth could prompt her to suddenly walk away, leaving them alone, frightened and vulnerable?
Where has Selena Cole gone to? She has been recently widowed and is grieving. Has she been snatched? Murdered? Committed suicide? All of these questions and more are whirling around DC Leah Mackay's head as she endeavours to investigate. Leah is a mother too and the plight of the abandoned children touches her deeply. Then a body is found on a quiet country road on the Welsh-English border – is it the missing woman?
Well, this book is called The Missing Hours so I think you can guess the answer to that one. But when Selena reappears, 20 hours later, safe and well, she has no recollection of where she has been. And is that mud on her sweater, or is it blood?
In a neat little plot device, the murder is being investigated by DS Finn Hale, who just happens to be Leah's younger brother. Finn is so new to the rank that he can still count the days since his promotion. He is desperate to prove himself worthy of the job to his colleagues and his sibling. I particularly enjoyed the interplay between these two characters. Finn may have the better pay grade, but Leah is definitely the winner on street smarts and that well-known item in every seasoned copper's tool box – gut instinct.
So together they make a great, if argumentative, team. Even with two heads, they struggle to get around the complexities of the murder case and Selena's disappearance is put on the back burner. However, something is still niggling Leah and she can't let the case go. Selena ran a successful business dealing with some of the toughest cases ever experienced by the kidnap and ransom industry. Her husband, Ed, died in a bomb blast at an industry event, and his sister and her husband are now doing much of the work. Both appear to have secrets, but can they have any bearing on what occurred?
There are plenty of twists and turns in this book, many of which are unexpected although some are a little telegraphed. The central relationship between Lean and Finn is well thought out and hugely enjoyable. For me though, the book falls down in its sheer volume of asides and extraneous information. Just as things appeared to be progressing nicely, along comes a kidnap case study to being a halt to the narrative flow. The first few are interesting enough, but after you may well be skim reading yet another article or case report that shatters the smooth running of an otherwise engaging read.
Emma Kavanagh spent seven years working as a police and military psychologist and her previous books have been extremely well-received. She has put her expertise to good use here, offering a credible vision of post traumatic stress disorder and sharing wholly realistic visions of life at the front line, whether it be in battle or as a kidnap negotiator. My gripe is that some of the detail is offered in a dull, written-by-rote report format. It might be true to life but makes for a lack-lustre reading experience.
So, a book of two halves; one compelling, the other frustrating. I'd be happy to meet the police officer siblings Leah and Finn again, but hopefully in a more reader-friendly format.
Click here to read our review of Emma Kavanagh's Hidden, which got five stars.


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Ohio House Creates New Committee For Nuclear Bailout Repeal Debate
Posted on: Tuesday, September 1, 2020
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — Republican leaders in the Ohio House have announced the creation of a new committee to hold hearings on the potential repeal of HB6, a nuclear power plant bailout bill at the center of an alleged $60 million corruption scheme.
FILE – This April 4, 2017, file photo shows the entrance to the former FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio. [AP Photo | Ron Schwane, File]
Newly-elected House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) says the House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight will allow will focus on energy issues and be tasked with "crafting legislation to repeal and replace House Bill 6."
HB6 is the sweeping energy law that created $150 million in annual subsidies for two struggling nuclear power plants, $20 million in annual subsidies for existing solar farms, and new subsidies for coal plants in Gallia County and Madison, IN.
The bill also rolled back Ohio's renewable energy standards and eliminated energy efficiency mandates.
"Our goal is to have an open and thorough process for repealing House Bill 6 and replacing it with thoughtful legislation Ohioans can have confidence in," Cupp said in a written statement.
The laws created by HB6 are under scrutiny after a federal investigation alleged that former House Speaker and current Rep. Larry Householder (R-Glenford) pushed the bill in exchange for millions of dollars that flowed from a utility believed to be FirstEnergy into a 501(c)(4).
Rep. Laura Lanese (R-Grove City) believes that the end result will still be a full repeal of the law.
"It's helpful for transparency for the people that don't want a repeal for them to be able to put their arguments forward. I think one of the problems that we hear a lot about is that people want more sunshine and I think the speaker is allowing that process to go forward," says Lanese.
House Democrats criticize the new committee as just another hurdle towards a full repeal.
Rep. Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood) says the legislature should act quickly in order to stop further implementation of the law, such as increased electric bills next year.
"I think the citizens of Ohio have had enough conversations. The vast majority of citizens support the outright appeal of House Bill 6," says Skindell.
The Ohio Senate is also moving forward with a bill that proposes a full repeal of HB6, with its first committee hearing this week.
energyHB6Householder Corruption CaseNuclear BailoutOhioState Government
Lawmakers Crafting Legislation To Repeal HB6 Ohio House Sidelines Bailout of 2 FirstEnergy Nuclear Plants DeWine Ready To Sign Nuclear Subsidies Bill, Awaits House Vote Ohio Nuclear Plant Bailout Stalls

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Interview: Advocate James Cameron on Chernobyl, COP 26, and how we solve the climate crisis
Matt Thomas interviews the barrister and climate change advocate on COP 26 about his extraordinary career on the front lines of the great fight of our times
MT: I saw that you first trained as a barrister, how did you end up in the environmental world?
I went to the University of Western Australia, and I did law there. And then I came back to the UK, really only because my mother was terminally ill and I went to University College London to do my undergraduate law degree.
And for all sorts of reasons – only part of it was to do with the course or the university – I didn't connect with undergraduate law at all and I struggled to perform having been used to doing well in the art subjects, particularly in English literature and other subjects, I found English law really pretty dark.
I just didn't connect with it so I had a period of time, right at the end of my degree, which was very intense and rather sad, and with the help of friends and then a girlfriend, I somehow managed to get a decent grade. That was largely because in my last year I focused on international law and jurisprudence legal philosophy.
Suddenly I found a way I could understand – partly perhaps because I had grown up in Lebanon and Singapore and Australia. International law seemed to fit more my understanding. I was interested in the cases of international negotiations and the things that international law seemed to be based upon, and I was attracted to the more obvious moral and political case for law that you see in the legal system that's still forming itself.
And it just seemed to work. I got my first proper job I suppose at the Research Centre for International Law, I became director Studies in Law at one of the colleges and the Chernobyl incident had inspired intense academic conversations about the question of what you do when environmental harm so obviously crosses borders.
The Soviet Union did not inform its neighbours about Chernobyl. They kept it secret, and the world really found out about it because of a private satellite who saw it and followed the clues on the radionuclide cloud. Governments did not bring actions directly against each other in the international court. It seemed to us at the time this was just an example of the legal system not working.
MT: So, the Chernobyl disaster was the 'lightbulb moment' I guess in terms your first link to the environment?
Yeah, that was it. It was a graphic example of a trans-boundary environmental harm. And the way the law worked – or didn't – reveal inadequacies of the international legal system. It needed a fresh approach. And then after that, the climate change issue emerged and had similar more substantial problems to resolve. But the obvious place to be is international law because the problem could not be resolved by individual nation states.
Q: As a 'friend of COP' what has been your involvement in the conference?
It's a day to day, topical question. All the governments who have this role of president form groups of advisors, and they vary. I've done a few, they vary in type, but they're meant to help the president's function which is to shepherd everybody towards agreement.
Equally, all presidencies have some kind of thematic approach to the climate problem, as well as their principal obligation which is to get agreement on whatever the agenda items are for the year.
The UK Government which obviously has a very substantial and competent civil service doesn't really need the kind of advisors that other governments have needed. I've been a senior advisor to Morocco and to Fiji, where I was really hands on.
Outside of government, I think it is useful to have another circle of advisors who are independent and can say straightforwardly what they think and are worried about the consequences. Even so, it can be frustrating sometimes when you aren't adequately listened to and anyway. But we have regular calls, as a group, directing into Alok Sharma who is the president of the process. We also have calls with his senior officials on particular topics. And, you know, there are several themes, and each of those themes have subsets of the group and often I happen to be involved, particularly with the nature theme at the moment because that's part of a project I'm working on. But I also get involved in the finance and because I'd be an experienced negotiator, I'll talk to the chief negotiator as well about how they're running the process.
Where you're going to arrive in terms of negotiations is always contingent on things that have nothing to do with climate change or some other geopolitical issue. Some other pressing immediate concern, something that has to do with a relationship that is central to power in the world.
Success or failure usually turns on the US and China. There are really only 20 other countries that have to come to agreement to make a difference, even though the whole process works by consensus here.
But if you don't have India, China, US, the EU aligned or capable of coming to agreement then your event fails.
MT: I was going to ask later on about what sort of challenges there are but from what you have mentioned it seems topics like geopolitics seem to actually come before addressing climate change?
They can't be separated. Every now and again, you see the potential for climate change. As an existential issue, it has the capacity to bind, and it can actually bring people together; it can make people desire cooperation. That remains a hope that I have that at a very elemental level. There is common ground between these big forces in the world who have other reasons for disagreeing. But that might be the idealist in me speaking.''
MT: On your website you say that, when addressing issues centred on tackling climate change, you are 'interested in the space between law, policy, finance and technology'. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
I've decided that's probably my function. So, for example, if you want to deploy capital to solve the climate change problem you want your money either to have very specific obligations to deal with climate, or, that there is an opportunity for you to compete with incumbent businesses and technologies that may actually be causing the problem but have been there for a while.
So if you want a marketplace for money and technology and other resources, you have to change the rules. So changing the rules means changing the law or changing the application of the law, or changing the public policy interpretation of the law.
Clearly, there's politics and power politics involved with that but there's also permanent civil servants who have mandates that are already set. They, on the whole, either make or implement policy depending on where they are in the world. Frequently, the language spoken by all parties is so different, they don't quite understand each other. And they certainly don't trust. And then, the world of finance has his own ecosystem, all sorts of different types of finance, they have become quite distinct tribes with their own return expectations. They have their own sense of themselves. Believe me, they really do have their own sense of who's best.
And sometimes that doesn't connect with people who create enterprises, entrepreneurs, innovators, people starting out, have no experience of any of these phenomena. They need to be helped, but they also need to have an environment in which they can actually compete where they can thrive.
I like to keep on top of what's coming through in the world of innovation I want. I have got some experience to offer but I don't know the answer, so I'm interested in being something of a carrier of ideas, and a connector of people.
MT: It seems to me that there is a strong focus on climate change but the interrelated issue of biodiversity loss gets far less attention. Climate change is just one of the factors behind the destruction of habitats and the degradation of the natural world. How can companies, consumers and policy makers elevate understanding of the impact of biodiversity loss on human societies?
'Yeah, and they are completely interrelated, which makes it evermore complex to solve. I spent most of the last year, more focused on nature.
I've worked a lot on wildlife. I did the International Whaling Convention, the Convention of Endangered Species, illegal trafficking with wild birds and other species.
It's quite dangerous work too. I work with people who risked their lives trying to reveal what was going on. So this has been there all along but it's been a relatively minor issue for big politics. It's an issue for people who care. It's an issue for people who've got a particular concern about a species, and it's widely felt. People do feel a connection with nature.
Clearly something happened to us psychologically during COVID, where people started to appreciate nature wherever they lived – maybe, particularly if they lived in a city.
The climate issue has highlighted aspects of the decline and threat to nature, but not all of them. It has a tendency to deal with climate as a priority that has sometimes led to people thinking too little about the complexity of natural systems. Planting trees is not a solution a guaranteed solution as planting trees means monoculture, and actually, biodiversity loss, which can happen. And as has happened.
Recently some good research came out of Oxford, on how many 50 degree days there are in a year now. The more you have those a year, the more you suffer economically, but there are things that can be done and relatively quickly to change that and a lot of it is to do with planting trees or creating green surfaces. But we also need to manage rainfall, because we're getting more intense rainfall which our hard surfaces can't handle.
Q: Do you expect these conversations around biodiversity to become more mainstream in upcoming years?
I do. And I think that language is important. Biodiversity doesn't reach people. Nature does. So choosing the right language to communicate, choosing the right messengers, obviously we've had the legendary David Attenborough to do a lot of the messaging, and he has made the connection between climate and biodiversity pretty clear. But if you want to do something about it in your own place, you probably need to organise at a community level. And that's really hard to do, but necessary.'
Q: We touched on it briefly earlier but what do you see as the main barriers to tackling climate change?
I think one of the main barriers is psychological. It's a problem that feels too big for me as an individual. If I don't think I've got any levers of power to pull, then I want someone else to do it.
And meanwhile, I've got something that's immediately pressing on my concerns that I've got to feed children or I've got to find shelter, I've got something that right now I have that I have to care about. This issue looks literally beyond me – beyond my levers – and has a temporal dimension that encourages you to postpone action.
The other psychological fact is that we all experience is that we all have a kind of status quo bias. I don't mean that in a political sense I mean, we'd rather not be disruptive.
And, and also, there's a generational problem here that the generation that benefited from the tremendous growth in the 20th century that was driven by widespread use of fossil fuels, miraculous, use of fossil fuels, the innovation that went into fossil fuels the number of products, God knows. Look around you. Now, how many things in my room right now have a petroleum base or hydrocarbon base. Yeah, staggering.
It's very hard for that generation, to feel like there was anything wrong, you know, good things came from that place, wealth, and security, and material benefit.
On top of all that, there are cultural connections that are very, very deep. You can see that most clearly in in the kind of mining and mineral cultures of Australia and Canada and the US.
So, you know someone from the soft city comes along and says, all that, all those minerals and oils are there bad thing, they get dismissed because they come from the soft city and they don't know how hard it is to win this stuff from the earth and create wealth. Those things are hugely important.
But in the last few years that the things have shifted quite markedly. Because there has been some government intervention the barriers are different now. They're to do with how quickly you can make the transition, and how fairly you can make the transition.
There are several set piece battles, I don't like to use war language, but what the hell. One of them is that renewables have to beat coal in Asia. And yeah, then you got to ask, "Where's the money going to come from?" Well, there's lots of domestic capital in China. Actually, in the end I'm not that worried about China.
There's a very confused picture, because they're the largest renewable energy market in the world but they're also still doing a lot of coal. But Indonesia is crazy. Why on earth are they building more coal plants?
MT: How would you rate progress in the UK in comparison to other mature economies around the world?
'Very good in parts. Very good in creating the legal frameworks and very good in concentrating expertise in many disciplines, less good on implementation.
Unfortunately, we've had some quite mediocre government where people who are more interested in politics as played out in the media.
And that's not a party political point because it works across the spectrum. It just is the case that too much politics is based on how you appear on a screen and how you are interpreted by the media and not enough with how you govern your department.
Unfortunately, climate change is one of those issues that you need good government. A nice soundbite doesn't actually solve the problem.''
Who would you say are the best at implementing right now?
As a structural point, I think it is much easier to implement in smaller states, where there's a high level of trust in the community. Denmark would be an example of an effective response/
Periodically, the other Scandinavian countries do well and you see elements of progress in Germany and the Netherlands. I mean elements because it's not perfect by any stretch. And then you see it also in the highly educated and technocratic cultures like Singapore and Korea. So those places have done well.
But nobody has all the answers, and nobody can solve the problem on their own. So, unless you get something like 20 to 25 of the major economies of the world, all doing something broadly similar in terms of effort, then nobody, nobody can protect themselves from all consequences.
People will move. Of course, they will move. You would, I would. If I'm living in a place where I've got no water I am going to go somewhere where there's water. If I'm living in a place where there are 20 days above 50 degrees in a year, I'm taking my family out of there. I want them to survive.'
MT: Are there any specific goals that you and your ecosystem have for the next couple years?
I'm working at the moment on natural capital. I've got goals associated with that. And, and they're largely to do with lining up a big general principle, like, we should value natural capital, and then taking it, drawing that down into the institutions, where they have the power to apply that in practice, and then showing examples of how the principles applied through investment in a real transaction.
These are the kinds of things that are both short and long term because I think we've got some momentum on the topic. But then there are others that are just the same as they always were, really: they're about trying to get agreement to keep as far as humanly possible under or not too far past the 1.5 degree threshold.
I'm constantly scanning for enterprises that I think have a solution that could scale. Now I want to find an institutional capacity to do that routinely so it's not left to a few individuals around the world, whereby we actually have good well-structured, well-motivated, incentivized institutions, to find the solutions that can be accelerated and deployed, because we're in a race. Alot of these great ideas will emerge organically over time but we actually need to speed the whole process up.''
Matthew Thomas. Photographer: Sam Pearce


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Home » News » Why we re-arrested Sowore, DSS explains
Why we re-arrested Sowore, DSS explains
On December 7, 2019 9:21 pmIn News, Trendingby Rasheed Sobowale
Omoyele Sowore
The action of the Department of State Service (DSS) to rearrest Omoyele Sowore surprised Nigerians considering the fact that he was released less than 24 hours earlier.
DSS in a press statement made available to the media by its spokesman, Peter Afunanya said the convener of RevolutionNow Movement "resorted to acts inimical to security".
The security agency recalled the statement of Sowore dated 25th July 2019 thus; ""I'm not talking of protest.
"I'm embarking on revolution… Don't tell me about legal implications or what a Judge will say. I don't care …"
DSS claimed Sowore had reassured some group of persons he will create anarchy in the country after his release on 5th of December.
The service said the rearrest is in line to the caution of the alarm it raised on 3rd of December warning of a plot to destabilize the country.
ALSO READ: We are law-abiding, didn't arrest Sowore in courtroom ― DSS
"It may be recalled that the Service had on 3rd December 2019 raised alarm about a plot to destabilize the country. It is quite remarkable that the plot has already started playing out.
"To ensure this objective is further achieved, some persons and groups are scurrying to seize the opportunity of the misleading court incident and the wrong narrative against the DSS to organize an insurrection in the country. They have continued to falsely curry and mobilize international sentiments and attention, through clear misrepresentation of the facts, for their selfish ends."
The department also stated categorically it only rearrested Sowore and not along with his co-defendant, Olawale Bakare.
"…only SOWORE has been re-arrested as his co-defendant, Olawale BAKARE, was not picked up even when FALANA had promised to deliver him to the Service that is not presently interested in him."
DSS said it is treating Sowore's case based on his resort to call for violence and not as an activist, journalist or politician.
"For emphasis, it should be noted that SOWORE is facing trial not as an activist, journalist or a politician, but for his resort to call for violence, forceful takeover of government and suspected transnational illegal activities. It is most unfortunate that SOWORE, shortly after being released from custody, based on court order, resorted to acts inimical to security."
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(Nanowerk News) Using a unique hybrid nanostructure, University of Maryland researchers have shown a new type of light-matter interaction and also demonstrated the first full quantum control of qubit spin within very tiny colloidal nanostructures (a few nanometers), thus taking a key step forward in efforts to create a quantum computer.
Published in the July 1 issue of Nature ("Tailoring light–matter–spin interactions in colloidal hetero-nanostructures"), their research builds on work by the same Maryland research team published in March in the journal Science (3-26-10). According to the authors and outside experts, the new findings further advance the promise these new nanostructures hold for quantum computing and for new, more efficient, energy generation technologies (such as photovoltaic cells), as well as for other technologies that are based on light-matter interactions like biomarkers.
"The real breakthrough is that we use a new technology from materials science to 'shed light' on light-matter interactions and related quantum science in ways that we believe will have important applications in many areas, particularly energy conversion and storage and quantum computing," said lead researcher Min Ouyang, an assistant professor in the department of physics and in the university's Maryland NanoCenter. "In fact, our team already is applying our new understanding of nanoscale light-matter interactions and advancement of precise control of nanostructures to the development of a new type of photovoltaic cell that we expect to be significantly more efficient at converting light to electricity than are current cells."
Ouyang and the other members of the University of Maryland team -- research scientist Jiatao Zhang, and students Kwan Lee and Yun Tang -- have created a patent-pending process that uses chemical thermodynamics to produce, in solution, a broad range of different combination materials, each with a shell of structurally perfect mono-crystal semiconductor around a metal core. In the research published in this week's Nature, the researchers used hybrid metal/semiconductor nanostructures developed through this process to experimentally demonstrate "tunable resonant coupling" between a plasmon (from metal core) and an exciton (from semiconductor shell), with a resulting enhancement of the Optical Stark Effect. This effect was discovered some 60 years ago in studies of the interaction between light and atoms that showed light can be applied to modify atomic quantum states.
"Metal-semiconductor heteronanostructures have been investigated intensely in the last few years with the metallic components used as nanoscale antennas to couple light much more effectively into and out of semiconductor nanoscale, light-emitters," said Garnett W. Bryant, leader of the Quantum Processes and Metrology Group in the Atomic Physics Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). "The research led Min Ouyang shows that a novel heteronanostructure with the semiconductor surrounding the metallic nanoantenna can achieve the same goals. Such structures are very simple and much easier to make than previously attempted, greatly opening up possibilities for application. Most importantly, they have demonstrated that the light/matter coupling can be manipulated to achieve coherent quantum control of the semiconductor nanoemitters, a key requirement for quantum information processing."
Ouyang and his colleagues agree that their new findings were made possible by their crystal-metal hybrid nanostructures, which offer a number of benefits over the epitaxial structures used for previous work. Epitaxy has been the principle way to create single crystal semiconductors and related devices. The new research highlights the new capabilities of these UM nanostructures, made with a process that avoids two key constraints of epitaxy -- a limit on deposition semiconductor layer thickness and a rigid requirement for "lattice matching."
The Maryland scientists note that, in addition to the enhanced capabilities of their hybrid nanostructures, the method for producing them doesn't require a clean room facility and the materials don't have to be formed in a vacuum, the way those made by conventional epitaxy do. "Thus it also would be much simpler and cheaper for companies to mass produce products based on our hybrid nanostructures," Ouyang said.


Fear, anxiety and hypnotherapy in Henley, Watlington and Wheatley.
Don't let anxiety stay on top. Hypnotherapy could help you to let it go.
I'm truly sorry if you've been driven to seek help for anxiety. That gnawing feeling of dread can destroy your ability to enjoy life and even to focus effectively on basic tasks at home and at work.
However, help is at hand and so you can take a deep breath and begin to feel a little bit more hopeful about the future.
Anxiety is a hypnotherapist's bread and butter. Pretty much all of my clients suffer from it and I've used hypnotherapy in Oxford, London, Reading, Wallingford and Thame in order to help people to set themselves free from anxiety, fear, generalised anxiety disorder, panic attacks and more. If you're presently feeling anxious, scared and alone then hypnotherapy could help you too.
Anxiety doesn't have to be in control forever!
By learning to focus upon your strengths, through concentrating on what is good about the here and now, by accepting the possibility of a better future, you can learn to leave anxiety and fear behind. I've helped hundreds of people to reprogram their minds. They learned to restore control over their own fears. You can too!
The original cause of your anxious feelings can be located and resolved. You can learn to face fer down and to re-establish control over your life. Step by step, day by day, the future could begin to feel brighter again.
For information on how I work with panic attacks please click here.
Are you still trying to beat anxiety out of your system?
People try so hard to beat it out of themselves. They cajole, insult and place themselves under so much pressure to get better that they make things worse.
I help my clients to approach things in a different way. If you can't beat anxiety by bullying yourself then you can learn to do so through accepting that anxiety. Just let it be there!
That doesn't, of course, mean that you have to put up with anxiety forever. It simply means that this is where we are, right now, and fighting against it in a self-critical manner just isn't going to work for you. It hasn't worked so far, has it!? A different approach is needed. I could help you to find a new way to deal with it, to befriend it, to kill it with kindness.
Every time you become anxious about the fact that you're anxious, every time you criticise yourself for being this way, every time you rage against that feeling it simply grows stronger.
The more you hate anxiety the bigger it becomes.
I'll teach you a different approach which will help you to leave it behind you forever. I've used this approach with hundreds of people in Reading, Oxford, London, Wallingford and Thame. Hypnotherapy has helped them and it can help you too.
Once you begin to learn how to treat anxiety differently, instead of becoming afraid of it and making it worse, half the battle is won. I can teach you how. Just give me a call and we'll get started!
Yes, I know, that sounds ridiculous but it really does work. This quote came from a former client of mine and it's an excellent way of explaining the way I often choose to work with anxiety.
If you relax around anxiety, if you accept your right to feel it, then you remove a couple of layers of discomfort. You begin to treat yourself with compassion and respect and so you learn to feel somewhat better. It's an early and quick win in the wider war against anxiety disorders of any kind.
Step by step you can begin to push the boundaries of fear backwards. You can begin to test new coping mechanisms and grow in confidence.
Many of my anxiety clients have seen counsellors before coming to see me. They found that talking things through was helpful but they all came away still not knowing of any solidly practical approaches.
The fear was still there and they came to me looking for help to cope with it, to begin with, and then to remove it altogether.
You could learn to do the same. Hypnotherapy offers you the opportunity to cope with anxiety, resolve the issues which caused it and so be able to rebuild your life.
You can do it. I'm here to help!
This whole anxiety problem began because you believe , on some level, that you're not good enough. Treat yourself more kindly and things will improve. This whole problem grew worse because you became anxious and angry about anxiety. Relax around it and half the problem is gone. We'll then resolve the underlying issues and your problem will be all gone, for good.
I can help you to realise that you are good enough. I can help you to build your self-esteem, self-acceptance and pride in the person you've become. Anxiety, fear, nerves and self-doubt will whither, fade and die.
If you're reading this then the likelihood is that you've already done some reading and you'll have tried all sorts of self-soothing techniques. Don't forget those but they're not repeated here. Here are some tips which are less commonly explained.
Give your anxiety a character.
Close your eyes and imagine it as a cartoon character who wants to be scary but who really isn't any good at it.
Imagine that character with a ridiculous voice, as if it has inhaled a balloon full of helium.
You see, when we feel anxious we see that anxiety as being a powerful force beyond our control. When we give it a character, a personality, a slightly silly voice then we can talk to it, talk it down, reassure it that bit more easily and picture it growing calmer.
It may sound silly but plenty of my clients in Reading, Thame, London, Oxford and Wallingford have used this technique and report it has helped them. It's certainly worth a try.
Give me a call and we can discuss how I could help you. Hypnotherapy can turbocharge this approach, as well as all the others, and render them much more powerful. You needn't continue to suffer the awful effects of anxiety. You could be free of it once and for all.
Don't let your anxious thoughts run away with themselves.
Vocalise them. Vocalise them slowly and calmly, giving yourself time to breathe. Then answer them slowly and calmly, as if talking to that anxiety character.
Heed the more commonplace suggestions you'll read about diet, sleep and exercise. They may seem trite but they are important. A healthy body is a healthy mind and the absence of these things will only ever make bad things worse.
Please, please, please don't turn to food for comfort. Nobody feels better for becoming overweight. Exercise, on the other hand, is shown by research to be the most effective quick win. Exercise destroys adrenaline and releases endorphins. Even a brisk walk counts.
Close your eyes and think back to a good memory.
hear, the people you were with and then remember how it felt to be you at that time. Practise making those remembered feelings stronger and stronger. Feel them more acutely and exaggerate them. The more you practise this the quicker and easier it becomes to recapture those feelings when you need them.
Don't focus on where you want to be and compare it to where you feel yourself to be right now. Take control by deciding upon the very next step – no matter how small – and PRAISE YOURSELF for taking it.
After all, I expect you've bullied yourself for long enough and it doesn't work, does it!? Praise yourself, even if it seems mechanical and insincere, for every positive action taken.
Bullying yourself and criticising your actions, or the lack of them, has done you no good so far. That's not going to change. A different approach is needed.
Hypnotherapy could give you the tools and the structure in which to use them.
Do not turn to alcohol or other substances for relief.
You'll need more and more of them over time, to achieve the same effect, and you know where that ends up. Besides, you'll be achieving less and thus feeling worse. It's avoidance behaviour and will achieve nothing in the long run.
People are social animals and yet anxiety and depression leads us to withdraw. If you notice this temptation then resist it with all of your power. Socialising with a trusted network of friends is shown to be a significant part of recovery from depression and anxiety disorders. Start small, with a particularly close friend, and build up. If you find yourself without much of a social network then you could use meetup.com or similar sites to begin.
Graham Turnbull wrote a book called 'Trauma'. In this book he explains that helping others is one of the best ways of escaping PTSD. It's the same for other forms of anxiety. Helping others gives us a sense of purpose, achievement and drives social interaction.
If you're short on time then just take every opportunity to practise random acts of kindness. Keep doors open. let people into queues of traffic, help women with carrying their prams up stairs and you'll receive a boost from their gratitude.
You'll find that the gratitude of others helps you to feel better about your own self. You'll notice that people respond to you positively. Your confidence will grow and as it does so your anxiety will begin to diminish.
Helping others is an excellent way of allowing yourself to feel better about you. You're a good enough person already. Hypnotherapy could help you to see it for yourself.
Give me a call and we could talk through the many ways in which hypnosis can be used to help you to put your feelings of anxiety, panic and fear behind you, once and for all.
What do they say about you as a person? Tell yourself. Do this after you've brushed your teeth each night. It'll begin to focus your attention away from the negative and towards the positive.
Sit in a different place to eat. Eat something different to the usual. Drive to work a different way. Get dressed in different rooms. Anxiety can anchor itself to certain routines and places. Change them.
Have baths full of all that girly stuff if you used to enjoy that kind of thing. Buy that new outfit. Do whatever it is, or was, which made you feel good- even if its effects are temporary it will prove that a change in mood is possible.
Reflect upon what you'd like to change in life.
Lobsters and crabs cast off their old shells when their old ones become uncomfortable. Perhaps this is your opportunity for growth. Read more about this idea here.
Sit down for ten minutes and worry as hard as you can. Over-dramatise it as hard as you can and have something absorbing (washing up, jigsaws, lawn-mowing, walking the dog etc etc) planned for when worry time is over.
Think back to all the things you've worried about in the past.
How many of them actually came out as badly as you feared they might? How did things really turn out and what can you learn from those experiences when thinking of how to overcome your present-day concerns?
You really can learn to beat anxiety. I would be sooo pleased to be able to help you accomplish this task. You have everything you need to achieve your goal. I am waiting for your call so that we can begin to get to work.
So many people in Oxford, Reading, London, Wallingford and Thame have used hypnotherapy in order to escape from anxiety. There's no reason at all why you couldn't do the same. It only requires one thing of you – the courage to get in touch and to resolve that you're simply not going to allow yourself to suffer in this way any longer.
Hypnosis is a wonderful way of learning how to relax and whilst you're in that state you can begin to reconfigure your mind. You can leave the past behind you and find new ways of dealing with old problems.
Hypnotherapy has helped countless thousands of people to make long-lasting changes to the way they feel, think and behave. There's no reason why you can't join them and spend the rest of your life with a greater degree of confidence in your own self.
I offer warm, professional and effective hypnotherapy in Reading, Oxford, Thame, London and Wallingford. You can call me on 07786 123736 / 01865 600970 / 01183 280284 (we'll talk about whatever it is which bothers you – giving you the chance to decide if I might be the right hypnotherapist for you) or email me at paul@resolvedhypnotherapy.co.uk. It might be quicker simply to use the contact form below.


The goal is to build a dataset that gathers information on human trafficking from court cases and news articles. This project started from a series of conversations with Professor Yuliya Zabyelina, Eric Schles and Aida Shoydokova.
20171012 YZ suggests to RH that it would be useful to build a human trafficking dataset from court cases and news articles.
20171103 AS talks with RH and begins working on information extraction from court cases.
20171105 YZ, N, OC, AS, SA, RH meet to discuss ideas and coordinate work.
20171214 YZ, ES, AS, RH present their work in a workshop on Computational Approaches to Fight Human Trafficking Using Python, hosted at Civic Hall by CrossCompute, NYC PyLadies, Spatiotemporal Analysis for Community Health and Safety and sponsored by the Python Software Foundation.
All of the exercises in this tutorial are also CrossCompute Tools. To learn how to format a Jupyter Notebook as a CrossCompute Tool, please see this example.


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Current Articles | Archives
Battery-Free Cellphone Harvests Ambient Power
Staff posted on July 06, 2017 |
A team of researchers has invented a cellphone that requires no batteries—a major leap forward in moving beyond chargers, cords and dying phones. Instead, the phone harvests the few microwatts of power it requires from either ambient radio signals or light.
The team also made Skype calls using its battery-free phone, demonstrating that the prototype made of commercial, off-the-shelf components can receive and transmit speech and communicate with a base station.
The new technology is detailed in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.
"We've built what we believe is the first functioning cellphone that consumes almost zero power," said co-author Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. "To achieve the really, really low power consumption that you need to run a phone by harvesting energy from the environment, we had to fundamentally rethink how these devices are designed."
The team of UW computer scientists and electrical engineers eliminated a power-hungry step in most modern cellular transmissions: converting analog signals that convey sound into digital data that a phone can understand. This process consumes so much energy that it's been impossible to design a phone that can rely on ambient power sources.
Instead, the battery-free cellphone takes advantage of tiny vibrations in a phone's microphone or speaker that occur when a person is talking into a phone or listening to a call.
An antenna connected to those components converts that motion into changes in standard analog radio signal emitted by a cellular base station. This process essentially encodes speech patterns in reflected radio signals in a way that uses almost no power.
To transmit speech, the phone uses vibrations from the device's microphone to encode speech patterns in the reflected signals. To receive speech, it converts encoded radio signals into sound vibrations that that are picked up by the phone's speaker. In the prototype device, the user presses a button to switch between these two "transmitting" and "listening" modes.
Using off-the-shelf components on a printed circuit board, the team demonstrated that the prototype can perform basic phone functions—transmitting speech and data and receiving user input via buttons. Using Skype, researchers were able to receive incoming calls, dial out and place callers on hold with the battery-free phone.
The battery-free phone developed at the UW can sense speech, actuate the earphones, and switch between uplink and downlink communications, all in real time. It is powered by either ambient radio signals or light. (Image courtesy of Mark Stone/University of Washington.)
"The cellphone is the device we depend on most today. So if there were one device you'd want to be able to use without batteries, it is the cellphone," said faculty lead Joshua Smith, professor in both the Allen School and UW's Department of Electrical Engineering. "The proof of concept we've developed is exciting today, and we think it could impact everyday devices in the future."
The team designed a custom base station to transmit and receive the radio signals. But that technology conceivably could be integrated into standard cellular network infrastructure or Wi-Fi routers now commonly used to make calls.
"You could imagine in the future that all cell towers or Wi-Fi routers could come with our base station technology embedded in it," said co-author Vamsi Talla, a former UW electrical engineering doctoral student and Allen School research associate. "And if every house has a Wi-Fi router in it, you could get battery-free cellphone coverage everywhere."
The battery-free phone does still require a small amount of energy to perform some operations. The prototype has a power budget of 3.5 microwatts.
The UW researchers demonstrated how to harvest this small amount of energy from two different sources. The battery-free phone prototype can operate on power gathered from ambient radio signals transmitted by a base station up to 31 feet away.
Using power harvested from ambient light with a tiny solar cell—roughly the size of a grain of rice—the device was able to communicate with a base station that was 50 feet away.
Many other battery-free technologies that rely on ambient energy sources, such as temperature sensors or an accelerometer, conserve power with intermittent operations. They take a reading and then "sleep" for a minute or two while they harvest enough energy to perform the next task. By contrast, a phone call requires the device to operate continuously for as long as the conversation lasts.
(Image courtesy of Mark Stone/University of Washington.)
"You can't say hello and wait for a minute for the phone to go to sleep and harvest enough power to keep transmitting," said co-author Bryce Kellogg, a UW electrical engineering doctoral student. "That's been the biggest challenge—the amount of power you can actually gather from ambient radio or light is on the order of 1 or 10 microwatts. So real-time phone operations have been really hard to achieve without developing an entirely new approach to transmitting and receiving speech."
Next, the research team plans to focus on improving the battery-free phone's operating range and encrypting conversations to make them secure. The team is also working to stream video over a battery-free cellphone and add a visual display feature to the phone using low-power E-ink screens.
For more low-power news, find out how this Near-Zero-Power Temperature Sensor Runs on Only 113 Picowatts.
Source: University of Washington
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Military Investigates Amnesia Beams
Author: David HamblingDavid Hambling
A team of scientists from the United States and China announced last week that, for the first time, they had found a means of selectively and safely erasing memories in mice, using the signaling molecule ?CaMKII. It's a big step forward, and one that will be of considerable interest to the military, which has devoted efforts to memory manipulation as a means of treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But some military research has moved in another direction entirely.
In the 1980s, researchers found that even low-level exposure to a beam of electronscaused rats to forget what had just happened to them (an effect known as retrograde amnesia — the other version, anteretrograde amnesia, is when you can't form new memories). The same effect was also achieved with X-rays. The time factor was not large — it only caused memory loss about the previous four seconds — but the effect was intriguing.
One theory was that the amnesia was a result of the brilliant flash experienced when the electron beam struck the retina. And, indeed, it turned out that it is possible to produce amnesia in rodents using a flash of light:
Retrograde amnesia was demonstrated for the 80-, 85-, and 100-V foot-shock test trials. At 40 V the voltage may not have been great enough to be felt by the subject. For groups examined at shock levels above 100 V, the foot shock was so potent that a photoflash was ineffective in producing RA. Our conclusion was that the photoflash was an effective amnesiac until the intensity of the foot shock became more potent than the photoflash; this is consistent with the recency theory generated in serial learning and memory tasks.
This might help explain some of the disorienting effects of strobe lights used as nonlethal weapons, but there seems to have been little further research on this.
However, there have been plenty of studies on the physical effects of radio and microwave exposure on the brain. Many of those investigations have been conducted by the military.
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate has carried out its own experiments in this area, which did not confirm the results of earlier studies suggesting that microwaves could cause memory loss. (The report is now removed from the AFRL website, alas.) Most scientists chalk up such effects to heating. But the Directed Energy Bioeffects division continues to research the human effects of various forms of radiation. What's more, a 2003 paper on microwave effects on the nervous system, from a team that includes Navy and Air Force scientists, states that
"research with isolated brain tissue has provided new results that do not seem to rely on thermal mechanisms." It is hard to assess the real effect on working memory and other brain functions, they add.
*"The many exposure parameters such as frequency, orientation, modulation, power density, and duration of exposure make direct comparison of many experiments difficult…. It is concluded that the diverse methods and experimental designs as well as lack of replication of many seemingly important studies prevents formation of definite conclusions concerning hazardous nervous system health effects from RF [radio frequency] exposure." *
Still, it's interesting to see that the notes for a classified course run by the Directed Energy Professionals Society (the people who build laser and microwave weapons) include "memory loss" as a potential effect of such devices.
I doubt whether they have a functioning Men In Black-style
"Neuralizer." But as memory research continues to advance, it certainly starts to look like more of a possibility.
[Photo: Columbia Pictures]
#Bizarro
#lasers
#Less-lethal
#Weapons and Ammo


If you still dream of being a ballerina, and the joy of dance captivates you, a ballet workout just might be your fitness niche. Some of the country's ballet companies are now offering adult ballet workouts to the public, and they seem to be quite popular. If you prefer videos, there are ballet based workout videos out there too. From ballet style warm-ups to deep stretches and floor work, these classes can be an awesome part of your fitness routine.
What will a ballet-inspired workout accomplish for you? How about longer, leaner, beautifully toned muscles. You'll achieve a certain gracefulness, and improve your balance and posture as well. Ballet improves joint mobility and flexibility. You'll enjoy greater body awareness and less overall stress. We all love the look of a ballet dancer's body, so why not give their workout a try. In addition to a great workout, you'll increase your knowledge of classical music and up your ballet vocabulary too!
To get you started, here are three great ballet workout videos to try. No tutu required!
This is a new ballet inspired workout. It's 45 minutes long, and offers beginners and intermediate users a great introduction to ballet-inspired stretches and movements.
Using classical music, Sherwood guides you through muscle toning and a series of fluidic ballet movements. You'll learn ballet terminology as a result of following these 2 disc, 85 minute routines. It is suggested that you have some prior knowledge of pilates and ballet before attempting this workout.
Led by Peter Martins, the ballet master in chief at the New York City Ballet, this is a challenging 90 minute routine. The core and lower body muscle groups are the focus of most of the exercises. There is a dance at the end too, so you can really show off those new moves. This workout comes with a glossary that explains the ballet terminology used in the video.
2. www.healthadel.com: Dance As a Natural Form of Exercise.


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Latest Asus phones
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Samsung A9s
Samsung Galaxy A9s is powered by an octa-core processor and comes with 3800mAh of battery. The Phone Packs 6GB of Ram and comes with 128Gb of internal storage which can be expanded to 512 GB via a microSD card. The phone comes with a 6.30-inch touchscreen [...]
Fero A5500
Fero A5000 has a 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage expandable to 32GB using a microSD card. Fero A5500 has a 5MP Rear Camera and a 2MP Front camera for selfies. Fero A5500 runs Android 7.0 (Nougat) and has a 3000 mAh Battery. [...]
Samsung Galaxy S Light Luxury
The Samsung Galaxy S Light Luxury runs Android 8.0 and is powered by a 3000mAh. It measures 148.90 x 68.10 x 8.00 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 150.00 grams. A lite version of the Samsung Galaxy S8 has been rumored for some time now, [...]
Tecno i3
The Tecno i3 is powered by 1.3GHz quad-core processor and it comes with 2GB of RAM. The phone packs 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Tecno i3 packs a 8-megapixel primary [...]
Tecno Camon X (CA7)
Tecno Camon X was launched in Nigeria and its now available in Kenya. The Camon X exterior appearance is exquisite, the bezels have been reduced keeping up with how a smartphone should look like. Find more about Tecno Camon X (CA7) specs and Price in Kenya here.Tecno Camon X (CA7) [...]
As LG's highest-end phone, the V35 ThinQ has a gorgeous display, water resistance and a headphone jack. The LG V35 ThinQ is powered by octa-core processor and it comes with 6GB of RAM. The phone packs 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 2000GB via a [...]
Samsung Galaxy S10e is powered by octa-core processor and comes with 3100mAh of battery. The Phone Packs 6GB of Ram and comes with 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card. The phone comes with a 5.80-inch touchscreen display As For Cameras, [...]
Oppo A7X
The Oppo A7X is powered by 2GHz octa-core processor and it comes with 4GB of RAM. The phone packs 128GB of internal storage that can be expanded. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Oppo A7X packs a 16-megapixel primary camera on the [...]
Tecno Camon i Click
The Tecno Camon iClick is powered by 2GHz octa-core processor and it comes with 4GB of RAM. The phone packs 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Tecno Camon iClick packs a 16-megapixel primary camera [...]